“Oh naauuuuuur!” What we did on TikTok while the Americans were away.

 

For those immersed (possibly too immersed) in TikTok, it’s been an interesting week.

On January 18, TikTok became unavailable to users in the United States following a Supreme Court decision upholding a ban. Twelve hours later, on January 19, then President-elect Donald Trump announced plans to delay the ban, leading to the app’s restoration.

Suffice to say, as American TikTok users prepared for the ban, originally suggested by Trump in 2020, there were rants, accusations, upset and pleas for fans to follow on other platforms. There was also a huge uptick in American membership of a different Chinese app, Xiaohongshu: ‘Redbook.’

“I want to say one more thing before TikTok goes away” appears on the for you page over and over.

The thing is though… the app wasn’t “going away.” It was just that Americans couldn’t use it anymore.

So what happened on the platform when American content makers were suddenly cut off?

Among other things… Commonwealthtok.

Canadians, Brits, Australians, and Kiwis were all of a sudden dominating the for you page, following each other and interacting in comment threads. We joked about being able to use the proper spelling for things – the letter U had never been so cool. We ate our baked beans in peace. We made fun of the way they say “sidewalk”, “caramel”, used the word “whenever” in place of “when” and stretched out the word “and.”

Honestly, we love her… but she’s kind of a problem,” we whispered.

“I never realised how little content from other countries I was seeing!” we said.

Then we went to bed, and woke up and they were back.

Asking questions about what we’d been saying behind their backs.

Awkward.

Due to the global nature of content distribution and the dominance of user-generated content on social media, much of what Australians consume on TV and digital devices is American. It was reported last year that more than 80 per cent of Australians are now getting their information and content from American social media and video streaming services, and ABC Alumni suggest that is a huge problem.

The pronunciation of words and a tendency to like American TV shows more than Australian productions is not going to ruin the world – however in the current political climate, the implications of being consistently inundated with American commentary is something to be mindful of. And of course, suspicion is rife that TikTok is now connected to Meta or that something even more nefarious could be happening – what happened to their CEO?

In terms of social media, there are a few lessons here. One is never to put all your eggs in the basket of one platform. Is now the time to start thinking about platforms? YouTube or newcomer Blue Sky, or any of the other new platforms?

Australian advertisers are still confident about TikTok. However, we should remember that the Australian Government is certainly not above banning platforms – so before it’s us exclaiming “ohhh naauuur,” and saying goodbye to a platform, the time for strategising how to repackage content and explore new platform options is probably now.